Firefighters and family members paid tribute to the pilot of an air tanker who crashed into a canyon wall in Yosemite National Park and died while fighting a wildfire.

At a memorial service in San Jose attended by hundreds on Tuesday, 62-year-old Geoffrey "Craig" Hunt's daughter, Sarah Hunt Lauterbach, remembered her father as a man who loved to teach her about steelhead trout and to ponder what the Earth looked like from 10,000 feet above the ground.

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KNTV in San Jose reports that the memorial included a slideshow with photos of Hunt and his family.

Federal investigators have said the wing of Hunt's plane might have hit a tree and broken off before the Oct. 7 crash.

Hunt was a 13-year veteran pilot of DynCorp International, which contracts with the state. The pilot also taught chemistry at the University of California, Santa Cruz.